Does the music industry have a gender?

The Portrait of Coco Maria.

By Lou Touyarou

The music industry, just like many other industries, is mainly represented by men. I don’t think this really comes as a surprise to anyone. Men release more music, are more represented in the media, as artists or writers and so on, you know the story. If you still have a doubt however, have a look at your own individual level. How many female artists do you listen to? After going through the 600 albums that I have on my phone, I realized that approximately 85% of the artists are men. So where are the women? Why are there so few?

The answer to these questions would probably require a deep sociological and gender analysis and that is not what this article is here for. This series of articles is here to, modestly, change this overall trend and share the voices of talented women in the music industry, share their perspectives and give them the recognition they deserve. It seems important for me to make a disclaimer however: these women are not here only because they are women, but because they are artists whose voices should be heard and whose work should be known.

The first article of this series addresses the work of Coco Maria, a talented DJ originally from Mexico, who after living all over Europe, has now settled in Amsterdam.

I remember reading about Coco and her work in an article on Dekmantel Records’ website. There was this picture of her, confidently sitting in front of her impressive records collection and I remember liking the energy of her sets and radio shows right away. It was a warm and positive energy, the same feeling you get when sitting in the sun.

Although the core of her sets are usually based on Latin music, her selection is extremely diverse in terms of genre or origin. Despite this great diversity however, she always manages to keep her signature sound and make it a 100% coherent.

Thanks to the magic of the internet, I managed to get in contact with her and discuss many topics, from how she got into DJing, her relationship to Latin music living abroad, to how she keeps on enjoying music while also being her job.

“My dad is a musician, and there was not only his guitar playing but also in the car with the radio.” she tells me after asking her about music in her childhood.

“My parents were not into vinyls but more into tv and cassette. Actually when I was a little girl one of my first gifts was a cassette player. It was mainly Mexican bands playing, there was this girl, this one singer that is quite famous that is called Selena. She’s a chicano singer, super super big.”

Retracing the evolution of how she got into DJing, Coco recalls her love for records developing later on, after going to parties and seeing DJs perform on those same occasions. “It was always something that was in the air. I was talking to some of my friends a couple of days ago and we remembered how I always wanted to play music at our parties. But I really thought DJing meant mixing and matching. Once I saw a lot of DJs in London, and they were not only mixing but selecting records. That’s how I found out I could also be a DJ like that. My first DJ-set was in London. It was in a little club called Moustache bar or at least that was the old name, I think she changed it now. It was at a really cool party with some friends, and you know at that time I only had 5 records, and I said okay I can do it. And then it was very fun.”

Having lived in France, England, Germany and now the Netherlands, Coco continues sharing her love for Latin music across Europe, and realized playing abroad also changed her relationship to this type of music.

“When I moved to Europe, this music that was always in the air in Mexico, I had the chance to experience it in a different way. And also because in the city where I’m from it is not very multicultural. Honestly there’s not much happening. When I moved to Europe I got to meet a lot of different people from different cultures, and I started to see the connection between all these genres and all this music. I think to take distance from my country has made me realize all these things and the beauty of a lot of things I took for granted.”

She tells me that living abroad has also given her the opportunity to play sets and radio shows in many different countries around the world, which creates different experiences with the public from one country to another.

“For example last time I was a bit nervous when I played in Mexico. Because I feel like for example when I play things in Europe I’m most likely going to play something that people have never heard before. Just before corona I played in a big festival in Mexico, and I remember thinking “Oh, how are those people that know this music as much as me going to react to what I play”. But it turned out great.”

If you already know Coco Maria, it is probably through Worldwide FM, an international radio founded by Gilles Peterson (a fine digger of our times) where she has a weekly radio show, playing tunes every Wednesday morning.

“I’m really enjoying it, but I have to stay awake. I really feel the difference compared to when I only had it once a month. Now there really is much more work. It also depends on the week. Some weeks I have a lot of music to share, and some weeks I’m gonna be struggling, especially during lockdown. I was struggling on how to select music since I was not so inspired, but after a few minutes, when I start playing it always goes well. The listeners are really nice. In the end it’s just people and they just want to feel good and listen to music they like. Sometimes I think I put more pressure on myself than needed.”

Although most of us can have a pretty romantic vision of what it means to make a living out of DJing, dealing with such an amount of music and relying on it as a source of income can also make it hard to keep it as a passion.

“Sometimes I feel I need to take a break from music. I find myself thinking too much about the songs, and when I notice this I know I need to take a break. For example since my last show on Tuesday I’ve been quite disconnected from everything, emails and music. For example, in the last few days I haven’t heard music at all, but I’ve met friends, I’m watching series which I never do. I know that in a day or so I will like to play tunes again. I need to do this once in a while.”

Being a DJ also means finding a balance between always being on the lookout for the next unknown treasure and keeping up to date with new music, and going back to the music you already know and like.

“There is this online radio from Mexico and they play all kinds of old music and old hits from Mexico. Once in a while I just want to hear that, music for myself. One of my pleasures is to listen to this radio and sometimes I find myself singing balades that my mom likes and all this old school stuff. It’s called “El Fonógrafo”. It’s like all kinds of boleros and cheesy 70s stuff and romantic ballads. I don’t know if you know this radio station in Belgium, it’s called Radio Minerva. My friends always tell me it’s a bit of the same style.”

Despite her radio shows, Coco has also been recently working on the release of a compilation album “Club Coco”, creating a selection of different bands playing Latin and Afro rooted music.

“The name is taken from my radio show, but it actually comes from a friend’s band’s song, and I thought it was a great name because in my opinion it sounds fresh, and you don’t really know what genre it is. I thought for the compilation it made sense to call it like that because of my shows so people can identify. It just started because I realized throughout the last decades there have been a lot of compilations of old music. I think it's great that they exist because we learn a lot from them, but I realized there isn’t one right now with new music. But it’s new music that has this old, organic sound. And I thought “Hey I’d like to put these bands together”. I started with one or two friends and then it just went naturally. Asking around different bands that I knew. I have some kind of relationship with all the bands that are in the compilation so it was like a family project.”

The past year has obviously been very different for DJ’s around the world and like many of us, has deeply affected their work, which has also required adapting and evolving with the current situation.

“I went through different phases. First I thought it was gone, it was over. I really thought “that’s it”. I didn’t know how I would recover from such a long break, how I would survive. But then what I didn’t expect was all this online thing was going to take such a proportion. You know all those onlines sets and mixes, it actually helped me to reach more people. Because before I was more focused on the live things, it was kind of local. Also because with my new show I’ve had access to a different public too so that’s one thing.

Another thing that changed is the way I see my own music. I feel like it was all going so fast that I was already doing it a bit more automatically. The last months I’ve had more time to think about where I want to go, what I want to get or how I can diversify, all those things. The conclusion is that not everything was so bad about this break, and this online radio aspect of my work has really helped me to not get rusty. I think if it wasn’t for my show I would be really rusty. It also kept me motivated, I think for me that was good to know, it was something that kept me going. I find the radio a community that is still very important to me.”

The “Club Coco” compilation is now out, and you can find Coco Maria playing on Worldwide FM every Wednesday morning, at 11am CET.